The Rivals' First Series Since 1973 Is Oddly Similar to That Long-Ago Matchup; From Orr to Chara

Hard as it might be to believe, when the Rangers and the Boston Bruins begin their Eastern Conference semifinal series Thursday night in Boston, it will be the first time the teams have met in the playoffs since 1973.

The clubs are two of the NHL's "Original Six" franchises, and given New York and Boston's long-standing sports rivalry, it seems impossible that two of the cities' teams would have gone 40 years between postseason confrontations. But because the league has changed its playoff format so frequently over time—and because the Rangers failed to qualify for the postseason from 1998 through 2004—the clubs simply never crossed paths after their first-round matchup in 1973.

The Rangers won that series in five games, and as it turns out, there are some interesting similarities between then and now.

For most of his Hall of Fame career, Bobby Orr was hockey's most dynamic player, reeling off six consecutive 100-points seasons and winning the Norris Trophy every year from 1968 through 1975.

Now the Bruins have 6-foot-9 Zdeno Chara, who won the Norris in 2009, is the NHL's tallest player and possesses both an infamous ornery streak and the league's hardest slap shot (clocked at 108.8 mph in 2012). Other than that, he isn't much of a player.

• The Rangers have a terrific, Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender.

Before each home game, the Rangers show a highlight video that features fan favorite Ed Giacomin, who won the Vezina in 1971, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987 and had his uniform No. 1 retired by the Rangers in 1989.

He is still the Rangers' career leader in shutouts with 49, but it probably won't be long before Henrik Lundqvist, who won the Vezina last year and has 45 career shutouts, passes him.

• The Bruins have an accomplished but aging forward whom they are counting on for offense.

At 37, John Bucyk ranked second on the 1973 Bruins in goals (40) and third in points (93). One of the reasons the Rangers bounced Boston out of those playoffs was they held Bucyk without a goal in the series.

At 40, Jaromir Jagr wasn't quite as productive for the Bruins this season: After posting nine points in 11 regular-season games, he had four assists in their seven-game first-round series against Toronto. Nevertheless, he is getting close to 17 minutes of ice time per game, and he is still dangerous, particularly on the power play.

• The Rangers have an exciting new forward whom they are counting on for offense.

Steve Vickers scored 30 goals and won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year in 1973, then five more during the Rangers' 10 playoff games. But he didn't have the impact in that postseason that Derick Brassard has had in this one.

Acquired in the April 3 trade that sent Marian Gaborik to Columbus, Brassard had a team-high nine points, including the winning goal in Game 6, in the Rangers' seven-game first-round series against Washington.

• Neither of these teams is a flash-in-the-pan success story.

The Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011 and have won three Northeast Division championships in the last five years. The Rangers were the top team in the Eastern Conference during the 2011-12 regular season and reached the conference finals that year for the first time since 1997. Both have been building themselves into elite teams for a while now.

When the Rangers and Bruins met in 1973, it was a rematch of the previous year's Stanley Cup final—a series Boston won in six games. That title came amid a dynastic decade for the Bruins, who from 1968 through 1978 won two Cups and reached the finals five times.

The Rangers weren't slouches then, either: 1972-73 would be the third straight season that they accumulated 100 points and advanced to at least the semifinals of the NHL's postseason tournament.

• The NHL has some alignment quirks.

It is funny to look at the 1972-73 standings, for the NHL seems to have changed so much since then.

Even after expanding for the third time in seven years, the league had just 16 franchises and split them into two divisions: East and West. To maintain a semblance of competitive balance, the NHL put Vancouver in the East Division and had Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the Atlanta Flames in the West.

Weird, right? Outdated, right? Sure, until you remember that the Winnipeg Jets—formerly the Atlanta Thrashers—spent the last two seasons in the Southeast Division.

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